26 Apr 2011

A baby/toddler can start fingerpainting as soon as she/he can sit independently without support.

Since babies/toddlers put everything in their mouth it is good to offer them some non-toxic and safe paints, and what better then babyfood!

We usually fingerpaint after a meal (specially if there are some food leftovers) when baby Z is not hungry anymore, so eating the paint (food) isn't the main attraction!

We have a nice white highchair with a white tray, and I just pour a little colorful food on the tray for the little fingers and hands to dip in. The tray surface is very smooth, and the 'paint' just slips on it. No need for paper. For a baby/toddler of this age painting is about the tactile experience and feeling and about movement, much more than a visual experience or the product. I can just imagine how beautiful the slippery feeling must be on her hands and fingers.

Sometimes I set her paper because the paper surface is different - more rough. In that case I tape it to the highchair tray so it doesn't move and frustrate her.

And the colors? At this stage they are not of primary importance, remember? Anyway, it is good to use high contrasts since the babie's sight is still developing. If you wish, though, different colors, take a look into your refrigerator to find some: spinach for green, carrot for orange, sour cream for white...

20 Apr 2011

What I am fascinated most about V's drawing is the fluency that he draws with.

He can ALWAYS draw, and he ALWAYS knows what to draw. He takes a blank paper and a marker and the drawings and lines just pour out of the marker as if he were spilling water. There is never a "What could I draw now?" moment that is so characteristic for a-little-older kids then he is. His drawing can last for hours, and he seems to never get tired or bored or unsatisfied or dissapointed or frustrated or discouraged, or all the other so characteristic things and feelings of the drawing world of a-little-older kids and grown-ups! He doesn't need encouragement nor motivation, nor commenation to draw. He just loves to draw and that's what he does. Simple as that! Beautiful as that! Without interfering of any kind from my part.

And I? I enjoy this so so much in a kind of an irrational way. It is the unrestrained freedom and spontaneity and love and need for drawing that I am so excited about and that I so admire! And this freedom is so very normal and natural for a 4 years old, it could not be more natural than that! And I hope that maybe, just maybe, this phase will last a little bit longer then it usually does, and a little bit longer then it is normal! Cause it is so beautiful!

14 Apr 2011

In this post I wrote about The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We continued making holes, since that's a very interesting thing for a four-years-old boy to do. This time we used clay. When ever we use clay, we need to knead it first for a few minutes so that it becomes soft and easy to play with. Even just kneading and punching clay with the little fingers is a great activity for kids!

V made a lot of small balls of clay. He punched holes in each of them with a small stick. Ideally, you should leave the punched clay balls over night to dry and harden (it is much easier to bead hard balls of clay then soft ones), but who can wait? But, there is the magic: in the attempt to thread the string through a hole of a soft clay ball, the ball kinda squashes a little (?) bit in the hands of a four-years-old! The result? Perfect-imperfect-and-all-different ball-ish pieces!

11 Apr 2011

The Very Hungry Caterpillar, a book by Eric Carle, is very popular. We got ours from a very dear friend when V was one. He loved it then, and he still loves it. For those who don't know, the book is about a hungry caterpillar who eats everything in his way. After popping out of an egg on Sunday, the very hungry caterpillar eats holes through the books pages as he eats his way through a variety of foods, beginning with an apple on Monday, two pears on Tuesday and ending with five oranges on Friday and 10 defferent foods on Saturday. The now very fat caterpillar builds a cocoon. After staying in it for two weeks, he nibbles a hole in the cocoon and emerges a beautiful butterfly. Every page in this book has a hole on it where the caterpillar eats through the food, and putting his fingers in the holes is something that V loves the most.

So, one day, after eating a lot of tangerines, we decided to make our orange caterpillar. We tore the tangerine peels into pieces of approximately same size and then punched a hole in the center of each piece with a paper hole-puncher. V loved this part!

These boxes are used for many reasons: fitting the ball through the hole practices not only concentration (which you should see - with what great concentration a one-year-old can do this activity!), but fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination as well. Also, these boxes provide an infant with experiences of object permanence.

Object permanence is the ability to recognize an object or being as existing whether or not we can see it. This is a simple concept for adults, but not for infants between 8 and 12 months. Before developing this ability, babies believe that an object or a person desapears if out of sight. Games during these transitional months can help develop baby's cognitive learning skills in this area. Important components in any object permanence game (such as peek-a-boo, hide-and-seek, hidden-object-games, etc.) are "appearing and disappearing," "seeking" and "revealing" objects or persons.

So, back to Z, after fitting all the felt balls through the hole, she would remove the lid and find them all together inside the box. And she would be happy to play this game again and again and again and again.

4 Apr 2011

Sometimes, all you need to have hours of fun with your little one, is some paper, a pencil and a pair of scissors. Drawing our toys is something both V and I love. He loves animals and he loves to draw them. He could draw them for hours. He draws, and I cut.Here, in these photos from last year (when he was 3), he is drawing fish. Tons of them. I could hardly manage to cut them - there were so many. Finaly, after a lot of drawing and cutting, we laid them down, and started a new play: we imagined a big ocean, added a few rocks (pillows)... V "jumped" into the ocean and swam among the fish for a while. He was a fish too. Then we made some paper boats and a fish hook (we used a straw and some string) and we ended up fishing all afternoon. We laid our fish into a baking pan and made some beautiful dinner!

1 Apr 2011

Small kids love playing with homemade playdough. There are a lot of recepies out there, but we use this one:

- 2 cups plain flour

- 1 cup salt

- 2/3 cup water

- 1 tablespoon cooking oil

Combine flour and salt. Add water and oil. Mix until ingredients are combined. Knead well! If the consistency is to wett, add more flour. If it is to dry, add some water.

I found some buttons around the house and I thought - why not present them to V and see what will happen if combined with playdough. I gave him the dough and a cup filled with buttons, and here's what he did.

First he played with the dough (kneading it, punching it, rolling it, squeezing it...) Then he made balls, and turned them in to pancakes. Then he started adding buttons squeezing them into the surface of the pancake. Mosaic? Why not.

In this way we could use other materials as well such as little stones and pebbels, beans, sea-shells...etc.

As an art educator I believe that art (specially open-ended art) is very important for kids. I also believe that kids need play almost as much as they need air. This is a space where I write about things that I make for my kids (ages 6 and 3) to play with, about things that I make and art activities that I do together with them. If you wish to contact me by e-mail you can do it at veravec@gmail.com